One of my favourite tips to boost health and productivity is to use a standing desk. I’ve been using one since the summer of 2011 and I love it! Here’s why I decided to use a standing desk and some helpful resources if you are thinking about making the move yourself.

Where it all started

I first learned about standing desks from Stéfan Danis. Stéfan is now a partner in a handful of executive search firms, but many years ago, we were colleagues working in consumer brand marketing at Procter & Gamble. In 2009, I met with Stéfan to learn about how he trained for the Gobi March, an extreme desert race where participants compete in a gruelling 250 km race over 7 days and carry their own supplies for the duration.

One of his surprising training strategies was to switch to a standing desk. He even wore a weighted backpack months before the race to simulate race conditions. Stéfan recommended I read James A. Levine’s book, Move a Little, Lose a Lotto learn more about the science behind his decision. Levine is an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic and the inventor of the first treadmill desk, which in its first concept design consisted of a bedside hospital tray over a treadmill. In his research at the Mayo Clinic, study participants wore special undergarments with microsensors that measured every movement. It’s his research that found that standing burns 3 times as many calories as sitting.

The health risks of too much sitting

You’ve probably heard by now that “sitting is the new smoking” or read about “sitting disease.” A landmark study published in 2009 found that people who sit most of the day have:

twice the risk of heart attack

twice the risk of developing type 2 diabetes

twice the risk of dying from any cause

later studies have also found a higher risk of cancer

James A. Levine wrote that sitting is also a major cause of orthopedic pain. When we sit for extended periods of time our back muscles loosen, our hips get tight and our legs get stiff and weak, so over time, we can have back and neck pain, and become hunched over like Cro-Magnon man.

@IStock.com/dane_mark

What was most surprising from the landmark study was that these risks were true even for people who were meeting weekly guidelines for moderate to vigorous physical activity of 150 minutes. This means that even if you pound out a 5K run on a treadmill for half an hour, and then sit on your duff for most of the rest of the day, you’re at risk. And most of us sit for most of the day: the average Canadian sits for 9.5 hours a day, about 70% of waking hours.

What happens when we sit all day?

Researchers analyzed blood samples from people who had been sitting for several hours and found significantly elevated levels of blood sugar and fat. When we sit for hours, the transport proteins and enzymes that would normally move sugar and fat out of the blood and into cells where they can be burned for energy start to shut down. If we sit for the entire day, their activity levels drop by 50%. Then if we eat a meal high in sugar and fat, blood sugar rises too high and the pancreas starts pumping out excess insulin to try to keep up, and blood fats skyrocket by 180%.

Over time, when our body can’t use the energy we eat as fuel, it leads to health problems like diabetes, heart disease, and excess fat storage, particularly in the abdominal area. The great news is that the single act of getting up out of your chair is all it takes to get nutrients moving into cells again.

My standing desk

For my first effort to build a standing desk, I didn’t want to buy one until I knew it would work for me, so I tried an experiment with things I already had. I measured how high I wanted the tabletop and put stacks of old textbooks under each leg to raise the desk up.

It worked, and I loved it, but I had no option to sit down when I was tired. It takes a while to work up to being able to stand more than sit in a day. Besides, it’s not really good to stand all day either — just ask anyone who works in a factory or a restaurant where their job demands that they stand most of the day.

After checking out some sources online, I built my standing desk with parts I bought at IKEA – a large tabletop about 5 feet by 2.5 feet, four extendable legs and a bar stool. All in, it cost about $250 plus tax. The tabletop is 43 inches off the floor, just right for my height. The bar stool tucks under the table when it’s not in use and I alternate between standing and sitting. My desktop Mac is pushed back towards the wall and I have a nice area in front for my keyboard and to the side for reference materials and other office supplies.

There are lots of variations of standing desks. Some are static and some are motorized so they adjust for sitting or standing at the touch of a button. Here’s a standing desk hack that costs only $22, using parts you stack on top of your existing desk. If you are looking for a top of the line motorized adjustable sit/stand desk, check out the Steelcase Series 7 Height-Adjustable Table, which starts at $1,439 or the NextDesk Air, which starts at $2,180.

In November 2014, IKEA launched a new motorized sit/stand adjustable desk called the BEKANT Ergonomi. It will cost around $600-$700 in Canada, less than half the cost of many other motorized models on the market. It’s not available in store yet, but coming soon and available by phone order if you call a store.

Try a standing desk

Perhaps you’re not convinced a standing desk is your cup of tea. Katharine O’Moore Klopf, a freelance medical copyeditor in the U.S., started using a sit/stand desk in 2012 and hasn’t looked back since. Together with other healthy lifestyle changes, she has lost a significant amount of weight, reduced her diabetes medication and says she has more stamina, sleeps better at night and doesn’t get drowsy or bored while working.

Many of the top technology companies like LinkedIn and Google are using adjustable sit/stand desks for all employees and brief all employees from top managers to interns on the health risks of too much sitting.

Run your own experiment and see if a standing desk is right for you.

Update January 10, 2016: The Ombee portable, modular system looks like a neat option to consider. It turns an existing table top into a standing desk and comes with anti-fatigue mats to stand on. Price is not listed on the website, however Ombee is offering 50% off retail for those who subscribe to crowdfunding launch updates.

Do you have neck pain from using your iPad? A new study at Harvard School of Public Health found it’s best to use your tablet at a high viewing angle on a table because that keeps your neck and head in the most neutral position.

In the study lab, tablet users checked emails, surfed the Internet, played a game or watched a movie while researchers measured their head and neck postures with an infrared three-dimensional motion analysis system. The study was conducted by the Occupational Biomechanics and Ergonomics Laboratory at HSPH and the results were recently published in Work: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment, and Rehabilitation.

Four postures were tested:

Lap-Hand: sitting on a chair with feet on a stool, device in lap

Lap-Case: sitting on a chair with feet on the floor, device in lap

Table-Case: sitting in a chair with device on a table at a low viewing angle

Table-Movie: sitting in a chair with device on a table at a high viewing angle

You can see photos of the four postures here. But notice how in the Table-Movie position the person is not doing any typing? That’s great if you’re watching a movie, but how about if you need to type?

Here’s a solution I recently found at the Apple store: the Incase Origami Workstation. It’s a handy travel case for my wireless keyboard that flips into a workstation stand with a quick fold. It lets me take notes in client meetings or send out a live tweet stream during professional development seminars for PWAC Toronto Chapter without getting a stiff neck. Besides, I type faster on my usual keyboard rather than the iPad screen.

What works for you when you’re on the go with your mobile device and need to type?

Are you sitting down to read this? Perhaps you should be standing up. In a recent study, those who spent almost all of their time sitting had a 54% higher risk of mortality from all causes (except cancer) compared to those who hardly ever sat at all. Even more surprising, the increased risk of mortality was independent of whether they were meeting the recommended guidelines for leisure time physical activity.

Peter Katzmarzyk, PhD, Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and colleague at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, found that the increased risk of mortality associated with sitting was independent of whether people were exercising at a moderate intensity for 30 minutes, 5 days per week or at a vigorous intensity for 20 minutes, 3 days per week. The study was published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, May2009. It analyzed sitting activity data for more than 17,000 Canadians ages 18-90, and then compared mortality statistics over 12 years.

“If you look at the overall human pattern of movement throughout the day, it doesn’t make sense to focus on 30 minutes of activity. What about the other 23.5 hours in the day? What you do for the rest of the day is also important. You need to look beyond small bumps of activity,” Katzmarzyk says.

The average American now spends 11 hours a day, 5 days a week, sitting. “When you sit for long periods of time,” Katzmarzyk added, “like working at your desk for 8 hours straight, or watching television for long stretches of time, your body shuts down, your metabolism just drops, the active muscle in your legs just go dormant. It’s hazardous to your health: you need to disrupt that sedentary behavior.”

Katzmarzyk and colleagues found in a recent U.S. study that since 1960, the estimated daily energy expenditure from work-related physical activity has dropped by more than 100 calories per day for both women and men. In the early 1960s, almost 50% of jobs required moderate activity whereas now, five decades later, less than 20% of jobs require moderate activity. That 100 calories per day may not seem like much, but over a year, the lost opportunity to burn 36,500 calories accounts for a significant part of the overall increase in U.S. body weights.

So what can we do to take a stand against so much sitting in our daily lives? James A. Levine, MD, PhD, has some compelling recommendations from his research at the NEAT Center at the Mayo Clinic. He calls our increasingly sedentary lifestyle a “sitting disease” and links it directly with the obesity epidemic. In his book, Move a Little, Lose a Lot, he notes that fifty years ago there were no gyms, people didn’t workout, and yet very few people struggled to maintain a healthy weight. Levine says we are plagued now with an obesity epidemic “because we are desk sentenced.”

NEAT, or non-exercise activity thermogenesis, represents the calories you burn doing regular daily activities like taking the stairs, walking to lunch or standing up to answer the phone. Incorporating NEAT activities throughout the day helps burn up to an additional 2,000 calories per day by boosting your metabolic rate. Additional benefits are lower blood pressure and increased mental clarity.

Some ideas to get you up out of your chair at frequent intervals:

* Take more steps in a day – Levine says when you walk, “your metabolism literally blasts off.” Add steps to your workday by taking public transit rather than driving to work, use the stairs, go for a walk at lunch, or try conducting a walking meeting. Get a pedometer and track your progress.

* Standup desks are gaining popularity in many workplaces. Levine’s research found that standing burns 3 times as many calories compared to sitting. There are also desks with integrated treadmills that allow you to walk at a slow but steady pace while working.

CONNECT THE DOTS

Download Morsel, GE healthymagination’s free mobile app to recommend easy, healthy activities to incorporate into your day. Check out Standupdesks.com and Trekdesk.com to learn about non-sitting desk alternatives for your workspace at home or the office. Watch a video featuring James Levine to see a presentation about NEAT science and the obesity epidemic.

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